


Soul Food

by ad_asterism



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, Christmas Fluff, Food Trucks, Love at First Sight, M/M, Meet-Cute, Modern AU, Pining, TAZ Candlenights Exchange, TAZ Candlenights Exchange 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ad_asterism/pseuds/ad_asterism
Summary: Christmas market AU: Taako, who runs a food truck, keeps getting distracted by a tall, dark, & handsome busker who seems to be playing at every Christmas market they serve at. Will Taako get a chance to meet him? How will he contrive the exact right circumstances to give this extremely hot dude his number?A gift for @eidolongay for TAZ Candlenights Secret Santa 2018.Happy Candlenights!





	Soul Food

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eidolongay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidolongay/gifts).



> ASMR for Krav's market busking while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FJNiQaYbWE&feature=share

It’s a cloudy Saturday afternoon, and Taako is supposed to be making arepas, and Taako is distracted.

He’s standing at the back of his food truck, where a cobbled-together grill made from a variety of reclaimed industrial parts is open to the chill winter air. There’s a small crowd of market-goers on the other side, watching hungrily as Taako grills onions and beans together for the arepas.

Usually, Taako puts on a show. He tosses ingredients in the air, flips and chops and keeps a running banter. They attract half their customers with Taako’s one-liners at the fryer, his tricks and tosses, his sleight of hand at the grill. He makes sure to connect; drop a wink here, a flirty look there, drawing as many people in with his charm as with the delicious smell of arepas wafting over the market.

Today, Taako’s banter is a little halfhearted. A little distracted. His attention keeps drifting over the heads of the customers in front of him, across the square and the lights and the spinning snow, to the busker whose music is insistently pulling his eye.

He’s trying really hard to pay attention. To focus on his customers, to play it up with a bit of a show, flirt like usual. He’s almost at his normal levels. He’s almost got it. If it weren’t for that tantalizing music, always in his ear, always pulling him to look, look, _look._

At least today he’s definitely doing better than the _last_ market, where he got so distracted he actually _burned_ the pulled pork. That had never happened before. Lup had grilled him about that one for _days._

So yeah…he might have a problem.

It’s gotten to the point where Taako makes sure he takes all the shifts where they’re gonna be at any sort of market. It’s not his fault. He just likes listening to the guy’s music, all right? He just likes watching him work. It’s not distracting or anything. Taako could make arepas in his sleep, okay? And so a hot busker playing directly across from their truck in the market is a _good_ thing. It’s something to look forward to. It’s actually, maybe, _helping_ Taako because it’s helping him love his job. So it’s all good! Right? Right.

He’s just so _attractive._ It’s not fair.

It’s the end of December, and as the weather has gotten colder, they’ve been doing fewer farmers’ markets and more and more Christmas markets; pumpkins and artisanal hummus has been replaced with mulled wine, carved wood ornaments, and strings of lights draped artfully between the stalls.

And under the Christmas lights, in the falling snow, Taako’s favourite busker has started bundling up in a long, black coat and dark fingerless gloves. He’s started wearing this goofy purple toque that sets off his dark locs. Taako doesn’t even _know_ how someone can actually look good in a hat that silly, but somehow this guy pulls it off. Somehow.

It’s a _good_ look.

And see, here’s the thing; Taako knows a lot about cooking. And he knows a decent amount about running a food truck. But he knows absolutely nothing about music, except to know this this guy is _amazing._

His music is hauntingly beautiful. The notes seem to flow out of him effortlessly, cascades of music that drift across the square, twining around Taako and pulling him into its movement. It has Taako moving along at his station in the truck, bobbing his head and flipping arepas to the rhythm of the notes. The sound of it is dark, and smooth, and so, so alluring.

The busker is always playing the same instrument. It’s a string instrument, round-bodied, with a long neck, and black filigree tracing a pattern of dark birds around the sound hole. When the man plays it, his dark, slender fingers flitting up and down the frets, he gets completely lost in the song, bending his dark head over the body to curl himself around the instrument, shutting out everything but the music flowing out of him. His focus is complete, as though the music becomes the only thing that matters. It makes Taako wonder what it would be like to have that attention fixed on  _him._

It looks like a mandolin, but Barry and Lup both say it’s not and honestly, what does Taako know about musical instruments? Jack shit.

So yeah, Taako doesn’t know what the fuck that thing is, but what he _does_ know is that that man is fine as fuck, and his fingers are _distracting_. So here he is, in the middle of the midday rush, standing at the open-air grill at the back of the truck, freezing his ass off because it’s the middle of winter and it’s _cold_ out, but somehow _enjoying_ it because there’s this _crazy intense_ music playing and this gorgeous man just… _right there_ somehow just creating it out of _nothing_ and Taako is distracted thinking of all the things those fingers could do to him.

Lup’s voice snaps him out of his reverie.

“Go talk to him,” She nudges him playfully with her hip as she swings by him in the tiny truck.

His irritating twin is dressed identically to him, in slim-fitting, dark clothes, with a bright red apron reading SIZZLE IT UP AREPAS in flaming letters. Her curly hair, which normally spills down her back just like his own, is held back in a loose braid, and the row of piercings up her ears keep catching on stray strands, which is why her face and ears are streaked with white from her floury hands.

Taako sniffs, lifting his chin deliberately, looking away from Lup.

“Who?” he says pointedly.

“Tall, dark, and handsome over there?” Lup smirks. “The busker you’ve been secretly watching out for every time we do one of these markets?”

“I do not!”

“Do too.”

“Tall, dark, and handsome is too much of a cliché to ever be my type, you know that.” Taako waves his spatula dismissively. “And besides, I can’t go talk to anyone, it’s the middle of the noon rush!”

“Details,” says Lup. “So you admit you wanna talk to him?”

“First of all,” says Taako, “no, and even if- even _if_ I wanted to talk to _any_ busker, dummy, I couldn’t just go _up_ to him while he’s playing and be all _oh, babe, your weird not-a-mandolin is so hot, talk to me!_ He’s in the middle of his set!” He turns back to his fryer. “I’m not gonna interrupt that.”

“Well, if that’s the only problem,” Lup says, “he’s packing up his stuff. Now’s your chance!”

Taako jerks his head up, and sure enough, the music has stopped. The busker is bent over his case, delicate fingers closing gold clasps one at a time. The case is patterned delicately with black feathers, and the clasps are shaped like tiny birds, wings folding like hinges.

Lup raises an eyebrow, and Taako wavers.

Lup could absolutely handle the arepa orders for five minutes. It’s a pretty miserable day, and there’s not _that_ many customers. Plus, this is the last Christmas market of the season. Who knows when they might see this guy again?

As he hesitates, though, the moment slips away; a pale, bearded man with a violin case approaches from behind, waving and calling.

“Kravitz!”

The handsome busker straightens, surprised. _Kravitz,_ thinks Taako, a little thrill shooting through him. The name suits him. He doesn’t know why.

The busker’s—Kravitz’s— face breaks into a wide smile, turning away from his instrument case to greet the other musician with an laughing embrace. They break apart, and the two begin talking animatedly. The handsome one—the one Taako has started thinking of as _his_ busker, Kravitz, is laughing, suddenly, and the bright sound carries over the hubbub of the market.

Taako’s heart feels suddenly like it’s aged a hundred extra years. The cold bites into his face, chilling the inside of the truck through the open window.

Lup nudges him again.

“Go!”

“Taako’s good out here.” He focuses on the grill in front of him, sliding his spatula underneath the sizzling vegetables to flip them over.

He’s absolutely not thinking about how charming that smile was. Nope.

He’s _definitely_ not thinking about all the career choices that led him to owning the most-loved arepo truck in town instead of learning the violin, becoming a violinist, and playing at enough markets to win the attention of a beautiful not-mandolinist. Definitely not. That would be ridiculous. Taako has never even _touched_ a violin.

Lup rolls her eyes.

“Babe, I love you, but your sad-sap heart eyes are kinda ruining my vibes here, ya dig? Your pining is getting kinda…” she gestures with her spatula. “Cloying.”

“I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about.” The onions and beans for the third order are just about done. He expertly turns them with the edge of the spatula, gathering them together on the blade and sliding them into the waiting pocket of fried dough.

“Here,” says Lup, and before he knows it, she’s slid in next to him, snatching his spatula and hip-checking him out of the way, shoving something large and smelly against his chest. Taako steps back, nimbly avoiding the bag of food-truck garbage before it can leak onto his clothes. He makes a face.

“If you’re just gonna sit in here pining, you can at least go take this out to the dumpster. That’ll be one _less_ thing stinking up this truck.” Lup’s grin is mischievous, her eyes sparkling as she holds out the garbage bag.

He pouts, but Lup rolls her eyes, shoving the bag at him again. She tilts her head in the vague direction of the hot busker, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

Taako sighs, but he takes the bag from his twin, nose wrinkling up in disgust. It stinks of grease and oil, and it’s just heavy enough that he’s _sure_ it’ll break when he’s halfway to the dumpster. The black plastic is stretched and distended, lumpy with horrible, rotten compost shapes and Styrofoam packaging, and Taako is so _over this,_ he is so _over_ today, but he holds it at arm’s length and makes his way out the back door of the food truck.

He misses the days when they used to just bully Barry into doing all their garbage-related chores. Things have really taken a nosedive around here since Barry started dating his sister and actually grew a spine.

Taako sighs as he heaves the disgusting garbage bag through the fringe of the market. He knows Lup is happy, and he’s happy for her. But this meddling is almost definitely because she wants him to find happiness too, and honestly? Taako almost misses the days when they could both be bitter and cynical together.

As he turns the corner, headed for the communal dumpster, he hears a commotion behind him. There’s yelling, then a crash, and then suddenly the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Taako turns around.

The man running towards him has a pinched, ugly face, and buggy eyes like a frog. He’s careening headlong between the booths, glancing behind him, running like his life depends on it.

He’s got something tucked under his arm. Taako squints—

It’s a black case, with a subtle feather pattern and gold clasps.

It’s _his._

Taako feels as through time has slowed down. He hears shouting, distantly, somewhere near the next row of booths.

He feels the winter air on his face, cold and biting, and breathes in the smell of gingerbread and chocolate and frying arepas, carried on the wind.

He can feel the weight of the disgusting garbage bag in his hand.

The thief isn’t looking at Taako. He’s watching behind him, waiting for pursuit, running as fast as his stubby legs will carry him. He doesn’t even see him.

Taako doesn’t even stop to think.

As the thief runs by him, he swings the bag up and around, relishing the heft of it. And as the thief glances forward to check where he’s running, Taako gets to savour the exact moment he realizes what’s about to happen.

He nails the guy in the face.

And, shit, this sucker goes down _hard._

Taako drops the bag of garbage in favour of bending over his fallen foe. He examines him with a critical eye.

“Bad news, compadre,” he says, leaning down to pick up the case. “Cha boi is here to take out the trash.”

He straightens up, examining the case for any cracks or damage, and he hears footsteps pounding closer.

He looks up.

Kravitz, panting and breathless, comes to a stop in front of him. His wide eyes are taking in the scene, tracking from Taako to the dude lying insensible on the ground in front of him.

Wordlessly, Taako holds the case out to him.

“I…” Kravitz takes it mechanically, seeming speechless. “Thank you. That—uh, that was incredible.” He clutches the instrument to his chest.

Taako shrugs, letting a smirk cross his face. He cocks a hip, setting his arms akimbo, and sets his body language to _flirt._

“All in a day’s work, my dude.” He winks. “Besides, my market days would get boring pretty fast without having your spooky not-mandolin music to listen to, huh?”

The guy’s complexion is almost too dark to tell, but Taako would swear he can see a blush.

_Nice._

Taako nods to the case. “So what is that thing, anyway?”

“It’s, uh, it’s a bouzouki.” He still seems a little lost, staring at Taako with a baffled expression. “I… it was my father’s.”

“I still have no idea what that is. But I’m glad I could get it back for you.” Taako smiles. “And, hey, plus side, I’ll get to keep hearing you play.”

The clocked dude’s still lying on the pavement between them, dazed and groaning. He tries to sit up, and Taako shoves him back down with a foot, cocking an eyebrow at him. He can hear someone nearby calling security.

“And let that be a lesson to you.” He kicks him once more for good measure, then turns away, still aware of Kravitz’s eyes on his back.

_Don’t look back. Wait for it… wait for it…_

“Wait!”

Taako’s heart fist-bumps itself, doing a little flip-kick in his chest. He schools his face into a cool and calm expression, turning around with a polite expression.

“What’s up?”

Kravitz is hovering with one arm outstretched, clearly torn between dealing with the fallen thief and chasing after him.

“I just…” he stammers, “I just realized I, I don’t even know your name?”

He’s bright red and clearly flustered. On the inside, Taako is relishing this. 

Outwardly, he keeps his cool.

“It’s Taako,” he says. “You know, like from TV?”

Kravitz looks blank. “No?”

Taako shrugs. “It’ll catch on at some point. Don’t worry about it.” He gives a lazy, two-fingered salute. “Call me!” Then he spins on his heel, and heads back to Lup and his arepas, barely containing the spring in his step.

“But I don’t have your…” Somewhere behind him, he hears Kravitz trail off. Hopefully, he’s found the scrawled number Taako slipped into his instrument case when he checked it for damage.

And if not, well, he’ll find it sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

Because Taako’s on his game, baby. On his _game._

Taako’s almost all the way back to the truck before he realizes he totally left the garbage lying on the ground.

Whatever.

Worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry candlenights, @eidolongay! Sorry this was so late! This was my first time writing a fic for TAZ, and I had so much fun with it. I hope you enjoyed :)
> 
> As always, much thanks to @purgamentoram for letting me bounce ideas off of her, and for insisting that Kravitz needed to play the bouzouki and not the mandolin. (If you're curious as to what a bouzouki is, here's olivia insisted kravitz had to play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FJNiQaYbWE&feature=share)
> 
> Also, if you want to make arepas, here's the recipe for what I picture Taako making: https://pinchofyum.com/arepas


End file.
